What! The Heys
Welcome to the ‘What! The Heys’ podcast that tears the cover off the writing world! Whether you're a seasoned author, an aspiring novelist, or just a lover of great stories, I’m here to demystify the writing craft, explore the publishing industry, dive deep into the books we can't stop thinking about, and chat with amazing guests from across the literary universe. Get ready for a conversation that's as passionate and unpredictable as a plot twist. Let's get into it.
If you’re interested in my writing you can also check out my blog:
https://heyswolfenden.blogspot.com/?m=1
My Middle Grade/YA novel, ‘Jack Strong and the Red Giant’:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M22USRE?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
My collection of poetry, ‘Made in China: 50 Sonnets on Modern China’:
What! The Heys
#12 How To Write Poetry Fantastically Well: An Interview With Sarah James
Sarah James (also published as Sarah Leavesley) is a prize-winning poet, fiction writer, journalist and photographer. Nine out of ten of her solo poetry titles have won or been shortlisted/highly commended for an award, including her latest full-length collection Darling Blue (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2025). Her many individual poem competition wins include the Pre-Raphaelite Society’s Poetry Prize 2024. A poetryfilm-maker and reviewer, Sarah has run the Worcestershire Poetry Society Stanza for over 15 years. She’s also editor and managing director of V. Press, which is currently celebrating 10 years of publishing solo-authored poetry and flash fiction titles. Website: www.sarah-james.co.uk.
If you like this episode you can check out my novel:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M22USRE?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
And my poetry collection, ‘Made in China’:
Hello there and welcome to another episode of the What the Haze podcast. I am your host, Hayes Wolfenden, and I'm here with the poet Sarah James. So welcome everybody. Hi Sarah. Please tell everybody about yourself and a little bit about your work, please.
SPEAKER_02:Hi Hayes, and thank you for having me on. Yeah, so I'm a poet, a fiction writer, a journalist, and a photographer. I'm also an editor. I run a small press, an occasional poetry filmmaker, an occasional reviewer. I started in journalism, but I didn't find that quite creative enough. So I started writing for myself more creatively and originally wanted to be a fiction writer. I started one of the few courses that were in universities in England at the time, Birmingham University, and that was like screenwriting, short fiction, and poetry. But then I had my first son, and my time and my headspace got quite small. So the fiction that I wanted to write, I just didn't have enough connected time and connected thoughts to write fiction. And somehow I ended up writing poetry instead. I'm not quite sure how. I'd already done a bit in the course, but it just became the easiest and the most natural form to write in when I when I had the kids. And returned again to fiction. Finally, like 10-15 years later, when they were in their teens, mainly flash fiction at first. Then I had two I pub had two short published novellas, which had actually started when I was on my course, like 10-15 years before. And I'm also now working on a flash fiction novella, which became a novel, and a more mainstream novel. It's keeping me busy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you sounded in very busy, but I was I was gonna say like like hyper creative. I I my experience is with this is that once you start writing maybe all the time, or at least certain sometimes, you get very hyper-creative. You just get these ideas, and and it's I think it's fantastic. And it's interesting you're talking about fiction, actually. It's like fiction took you to poetry. For me, poetry took me to fiction, which it's kind of inverse. I I I I think it's it's interesting way, and I was talking to the writer last week about this thing that like when it comes to writing fiction, there's so many different pathways now. I think in like the the common mindset, popular mindset, is that you start writing short stories, you know, you maybe you write 10, maybe at 20 or 30, and then you then you'll try a big novel. But my experiences, a lot of writers, they they come at it from different places. Like I said, I came at it from poetry. So yeah, it's interesting. Do you know? I'd love to I'd it please feel free as well to send me some of your flash fiction my way. I'd love to read it, honestly. Because we you know, setting up this interview, I I was only really aware that you were writing poetry, so it's great to have these these other outlets and novellas. I I I do tend to love a quick read, and I think it's more because of my a bit like yourself, a busy lifestyle. And it's hard for me to find time to have like you know window reading windows longer than say 20 or 30 minutes. So if I have like short novels, short novellas, it's just it fits into that pretty well. I take your point about like you said you don't really have time to write like you know full-length novels. I mean I write full-length novels and I've I've similar to you, young family, but I do write quite short novels. Like I think it's because the young adult between my my latest novels like 47,000 words, which is not much, but for me it's enough. So that's interesting. So what about your poetry then, Sarah? Can you tell tell me about that? How many collections have you written now?
SPEAKER_02:I've solo collections. This is my sixth the one I just had out is my sixth full collection. And I've got four solo pamphlets or chat book length books as well. Yeah. It sounds a lot when you say it like that. It's you know, but like as you say, because creatives we always have something else brewing, maybe. And possibly for me, part of the thing with moving back to fiction again afterwards is you want to do something something new, always something new with what you're doing. So if it's in poetry, it's like maybe having a new formal constraint or an a subject matter which I've not looked at before, that kind of thing. So the collection I've just had out, Darling Blue, which was published by Indigo Dreams in October, it was my it's my sixth full collection, and it actually won their Jeff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize 2024, joint winner of. And it interweaves something which I've not tried before. It interweaves ephrastic, so art-inspired poems, with a book-length fictional poetry narrative of love, lust and letting go. So the poems inspired by pre-Raphaelite artworks have QR codes which readers can um scan so they can see the artwork as well. And then between each piece about a piece of art in the finic, still a fictional narrator, but in in her voice, between that that there are more personal poems in her voice to create a book-length narrative. Really interesting to do and really fun, and perhaps part of why I haven't yet got anywhere with the full stream with the full mainstream novels, with a fictional narrative in poetry, the same to some extent as doing a novel in Flash. You've got more space for the gaps between, if that makes sense, and not having to write everything out to have the interesting bits and let the reader do a little bit of the work before they get to the next piece. But yeah, not necessarily helpful to me in writing a more traditional novel.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sure. I I when I'm again listening to you now, like I mean winning prizes, I think that's fantastic. Like, I mean it's not even not just like a prize, like a single poem, it's like you know, as you say, like a collection. How does that feel? How do how do you process that?
SPEAKER_02:Oh gosh, honest answer in multiple different ways. I mean, this uh you know, it on it's lovely, it is lovely. There's that sheer validation of of finding something that's actually connected enough to make that to make that link. And then some writers get that just from you know, from being best-selling authors, from the number of people they connect with. And actually each email you get, not that they happen all the time, but each email you get from a reader or review all does that as well. So I think there's that element to it. Then there's the more the kind of all like do I really live do I really live up to this? Will everyone else hate me? That kind of element that comes into it. And then the sense of months down the line, then that sense of, ah, but how do I make sure now? This is my consolation for not winging the biggest prizes out there, the really, really important ones is how do you top that once you've done it? You know, how, or not even that. It's not how do you top that? It's actually, is it only going to be downhill from now? So I'm probably being too honest with saying that. It is lovely. I it's not the only way of getting validation. I think people get validation in all sorts of different ways, and I'm not sure it's necessarily the most stable way of getting validation, shall we say? But yes, I feel lucky and generous uh people that have given it to me, grateful to them. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think it's great you get recognition. I think it's something I've I was thinking about the last day or two was myself. Like one of the reasons I started the podcast was because I'd written quite a few novels, maybe like 10, 11 at the time. I'd been getting really close to getting like agents, not all the time, but enough times you you get personal replies, you get encouragement about writing, and I wasn't getting the luck, and I'm still not getting the luck. But rather than feel frustrated and have like despair, I kind of in a bizarre way I actually took confidence from it. I was like, you know, I I don't feel like I've got anything to prove. The validation, I gave it to myself, and I was like, you know what? I I think I think I I've got this. I just think that the difference between me and someone else, it's a little bit of luck, it's knowing the right person. But I don't mean that in a bitter sense, I mean it's just just more of a factual sense. And so I thought about doing something like this, and again, I was talking to the woman I was interviewing last week, and I was explaining, I'm not promoting my work doing this, I'm trying to promote myself so that maybe would-be you know, agents or publishers might go, okay, here's a writer that you know, maybe a bit like yourself, you you've got to get yourself out there, you've got to put yourself out there. And I think living in China, for me, it's a bit of a disadvantage in that in that regard. And I'm trying to find this virtual path to overcome that. So, yeah, validation. I think it's it's an interesting thing. It's you, you know, you can get a prize and feel great. You can not get a prize, but I think sometimes you've got to find a way to kind of you know appreciate the quality of work and sometimes the quantity as well. I think that's the thing about writing. Sometimes you've got to step back and go, I haven't written one novel, I've written many, and that's tough. And most people don't write one. Never mind, ten. Same goes for collections of poetry. I just want to go on, Sarah. I just want to go, I'll just say go back to dialing blue. Um, I've been reading it like over the last couple of weeks, and like, yeah, you mentioned I'm gonna say it wrong. Was it I can't say it ephresiastic poems? Can you can you repeat it? What it's what how you how you pronounce it?
SPEAKER_02:I pronounce it ekphrastic.
SPEAKER_00:Ephrastic, I think.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's like when you when you read authors and you think in your head that you've understood their name, and then the first time you hear them introduced on TV or radio or or by someone else when if you're at a festival and you realize that you've been saying their surname completely wrong all the way through. So, no, I think it's ekphrastic, but that's that could be me.
SPEAKER_00:No, I I I'm definitely gonna trust you on this one. Yeah, one one thing I like about it, and you've mentioned about the QR codes, and it's something I noticed as soon as I scanned the QR code, it was like it's like a different it's poetry, it's writing, but it's like there's that different medium because then you it brings for everyone that's listening, you scan it on your phone, and then it it links to your website and it links to the the painting that that Sarah was writing about. So first of all, I read the poems on a solo. I tried that, and then the second time I read them, I I brought up the the the painting, which I think to be honest is probably a better way of doing it, to be honest. And I I appreciated like immediately that it was a different way of writing. And and I I do think sometimes it's not just poetry, it's all writing. Could you know move into these other, you know, other you know modes of creation like art, photography as well. And I I think it does a really good job with that actually. And it makes me think about the the art as well more. That's that's another thing that happened or happened with me, was I wasn't just reading the poem. Uh the poem was then forcing me in in a good way to look at the artwork and just pay a bit of greater attention. I was just reading one again just about an hour ago. I think I can't remember the name of the the the painting there, but it's one with the the sheep on the snowy field and it's in the evening, and if that rings any bells.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's um this is the one yeah, there's a different there's that it's an interesting one because it it's it the in the muse if you go to the art gallery in Liverpool and you see the picture, if it's still out on display, which it might not be, they have one Scottish artist named as the artist behind it. And then when you go when you go online to their Liverpool Museum's art gallery, sorry, um website, it has a different one. It's the shortening winter's day is near a close, and it's either by Joseph, and I'm gonna pronounce his surname wrong, Farker Harson, or by David Farker Harson. I couldn't find out whether they're related in any way, shape, or form having the same surname, but yeah, they're both Scottish Scottish artists. Anyway, that's possibly more than everyone else wants to know about that piece, but uh yeah, I'm glad the art is inspired.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's super interesting. Like I say, I was I was I was looking at it and I was you were writing about the sun, and it just and it just made me look at the sun, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, you described it as like I think it was spectral woods. I quite I quite like that, and it made me again it made me oh I looked at the the the woods, the woodland. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. And and and it made me like like I say, look at the painting in a different way, and it kind of makes you think how the writing and the painting kind of you know like reflect on each other and uh magnify each one. I I was gonna say as well, like so I I I can see in in the in the collection, I feel there's like there's like three and correct me if I'm wrong, three distinct types of of poems. So you've got these uh athletes poems, okay, and then you've got some like what I would call like prose poems. I think would that be a correct way of describing them, would you say?
SPEAKER_02:I give the ultimate decision to the reader, but yeah, I mean that's how I intended them to be, whether some people prefer the just to call them prose rather than prose poetry, but yes, they were intended to be um prose poems.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I there's interest the interesting thing about that, and I'll I'll say this as well for for the reads, for the listener, is that like normally I don't like poetry like that. Normally I like just poetry poetry, and I I was pleasantly surprised. I I you know I'm I'm underlining them, I like them all. I think they really add a lot to the collection, actually. And I've got like my Kindle next to me, and I've got ones called Objective Evaluation, and I've just underlined the just the very first sentence. Like, if I were a painting, would he cut me from my frame? And I just that like line, it's just kind of jars with me, and it's like okay, and it makes me just makes me think about like meaning and like is that meant in a good way or a bad way? And and I kinda like the fact that it's actually a bit the the meaning's a bit obscure there, and I and I I really like that. And there's there's lots like this, like that. And then I'll be honest, like the the the dear blue c collection, I think I think there's this five. There's five. I I mean I I love them. I think they're great, I think they they come from the heart, I think they're very personal, and I think again as as a fiction writer, there's there's quite a bit of narrative there. And yeah, I I really like them. I think, and again, for the listeners, like I I really do encourage you to check out this collection. I will when I when I share it on social media, Sarah, I'll put like details underneath in one of the comments below. But yeah, I I think you know this kind of poetry, yeah, it is meaningful. It's I feel like it's there's there's a soul there. And I've been reading some other poetry recently. This is just on Instagram, and it's okay, but it this to me, it seems more grounded. It's a bit yeah, I don't know if that makes any sense. And I think there's a real human story at the heart of it, so you know well done, to be honest. I mean it's really good. Yeah, I think I'll be reading it, you know, quite a bit, to be honest, for the next few weeks or a few months, especially on my Kindle. So yeah, congratulations. What what a great effort, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. I've got all quiet now because you've made me too much praise. But no, I thank you. It yeah, it was interesting to do. I think the prose poems for me felt like a way of and for some readers they may be too meta, if you like, but they were a way of you know seeing the relationship as like a painting or connected to art in a way, and drawing the parallels between the two in the prose poems, with the the the other personal poems, particularly the dear blue ones, more directly addressed to her lover or about her lover, and then what else happens later in the narrative. So, yeah, it just gave me a a contrast on the page. If I'd been able to, which the typesetting was really, I have to thank Ronnie and Dawn quite a lot for the typesetting with it, because there's quite a lot of shapes and you know, different bits, there's a different font for the ekfrastic poems to the other poems, and there is yeah, some interesting stuff going on there. Originally, when I was playing with the um prose poetry at home, I was playing with the idea of whether I could make them like either portrait or landscape shape on the page, and at different page places on the page, you know, how does that white space round the words look and feel different if it's in a different place on the page?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think art definitely and what you were saying earlier about one form of creativity linking to another. I think that happens a lot for me and for most creatives that I know that they're drawing on something else or they're making parallels to something else while they're writing and creating, which is infinitely fascinating.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it it's like it's almost like it's like a fire. And like all fires gets out of control and it spreads and you know does things in different ways. I mean when I uh yeah, it's I i it's I mean I write constantly, but it's like there are moments where it becomes feverish, and you you you know, I remember when I was doing the MA, you know, we just for everybody back home listening, I first met Sarah, we're doing a master's degree together in creative writing via distance learning. So we we were like, you know, in you know, chat rooms and stuff. And yeah, we we were we were doing poetry, and whilst I was doing that I got my idea for my first novel and it was like I had to write it. And it made no sense in the sense that I had other things to do. But I was like, I I can't I can't not write it. It was just this burning desire in me, and I knew that I had to get it right down that like that was there that moment about that that year. Otherwise you know, i i I I would have written it, but it would have been different because you know, I wouldn't have written it then, I'd have written it later. You know, so yeah, and even now, like doing these podcasts, I find that like yeah, I have to really think. Like like I wake up in the morning, you know, after getting ready, when I have my coffee, I'm usually editing a video that I'm gonna put on Instagram that might advertise, say, a podcast post, or maybe I I'm thinking about maybe something, some kind of some writing tip. And when I give writing tips, I'm not just necessarily talking to other people, I'm talking to myself and I'm reflecting on my own craft and on my own motivation. So yeah, I think creatives, it it it's it's very interesting. And again, this is why I want to talk to a lot of people myself. I find it so interesting. Okay, just moving on a little bit. I I know you've said Sarah briefly, you know, obviously to me, in in in the past, I think it's okay to talk about it. You mentioned a little bit about a disability. Is it okay to talk about that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's absolutely fine.
SPEAKER_00:What's it?
SPEAKER_02:I my last collection kind of featured on it, so it's kind of out there now. Okay You want me to say a bit more about it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, how w how does it impact upon your writing then? How is it like because I've not I like I say I've I've not read the collection before. How does it like you know filter into your work?
SPEAKER_02:It's possible that it's the whole reason for me writing in the first place. I don't think it's quite as simple as that, because what you say about intensity and in the zone, I you know, you get a creative idea, and when you've got it, it is on fire, and you do need to kind of get it down and do something with it. And I don't know, I think that probably would always have been the case anyway. But I I have type 1 diabetes, so it's it's a kind of 24-7 thing, and most of the time it's not in there explicitly. My collection before last was called Blood Sugar Sex Magic, and that was the only collection or book that I would say was autobiographical in any way, and that was a bit about what it's like living with it. But I think it perhaps getting older, the the how it affects who I am and therefore who I am as a writer is is more apparent. And if I'm really honest, I think part of the drive, once that initial fire and that in-the-zoness has gone, part of the drive to keep on going with it may actually be linked to to having it, to living with it. You're aware, it makes you aware of fragility, death, elements of spirituality, all of those things. I mean, people are aware of them anyway, but I think perhaps maybe earlier or maybe in a different way, if if you are struggling with something on a day-to-day basis. And the blunt honesty, in some sense, with the stuff you talked about with prizes and things like that, and that validation, in some sense, for me, I think part of the motivation for doing so much and doing stuff is in a way to prove myself worthwhile, to manage to achieve something, to turn pain into something that might vaguely connect or be beautiful for other people. And it's kind of ironical because of course I can do all that, and it's still not going to change the fact that the one part of my body I need to work properly doesn't. But yeah, I think that's that that's in there, and therefore I think anything I do write can't, even if it's not explicitly about anything related to it, will always have something that's come from that. It isn't who I am, but it's definitely shaped who I am, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, no, I can imagine, uh I can imagine that it will filter. Yeah, it's an interesting idea. You mentioned like it might not be in your work explicitly at times, but that it's often there implicitly. I'm like that, you know, uh again for everyone listening out there. I live in China, but I don't like write like diaries about China, for example, and I I don't I've not written an account of my time here, other than my poems. But like this experience goes into the novels. Like you you know, you you you encounter adversity, you have you encounter a problem, and you get over it, you you find a way to solve it, and so it that a lot of that's in my my book. Also, my books tend to be very fast-paced, and maybe that also reflects the environment here. It's very fast-paced. Most Chinese cities are mega cities, and the traffic's fast, the subways are fast, high speed trains are high speed, and I think that that that's how that manifests in my work. Yeah, it it's I found it very interesting, to be honest. Another question I wanted to ask you a series, again, uh you know, obviously you're a very successful poet, you've got this uh magazine. I know you do a lot of, you know, as part of your like, you know, you know, publicising your work, you attend like book fairs and and book readings. I just wanted to know like what is that experience like.
SPEAKER_02:Book fairs and book readings are are are different, if that makes it quite different in experience. I mean book book readings, I went when I went when my kids were a lot younger, I did quite a lot of book readings. They I'm not naturally an extrovert, and I also have to keep quite a close eye on my blood sugars when I'm doing them. So they're not I enjoy I actually really enjoy chatting about poetry and I read and writing and I really enjoy reading my work. But they're they're at the edge to that is the gotta get my blood sugar right, gotta keep it right for that pint of time. So there is a slight edge to it. So I'm not if you meet me at a book at a book reading and I'm reading, then I'm probably not going to be the most relaxed poet you've ever read just before I go up. Once I'm once I've been on, then yeah, my attention's all back and I can do whatever. So I I really enjoy I do really enjoy it. I have to pace myself not to be doing too many. There are poets over here who do who do tours of the country with their book and they'll be doing it at least a couple of a a couple of readings, if not three or four a week. I can't do that. I have to maximum two a week and I have to have some relaxation. Well, relaxation's the wrong word, recovery time in between to stabilize everything that impacts on my blood sugars. So that's that's readings. Book fairs is an interesting one. There's a big, or there has always traditionally been a big, big poetry society involved now, but a big the poetry book fair or free verse up in London, which is one and I don't go to it as an individual poet, although I am also an individual poet there. I go to it with um with the press. And there is a balance to be made, and we always do that one because even though it costs more to get there and to get back, then we'll probably take most years I could cover just my train fare to be there for the day and my train fare and and the and the table higher, and we will get enough with the sales that we get. But having someone to come along to help me, we don't cover both, if that makes sense. So there's a real big balance with book fairs of what how far they are, how likely sales are, but also what else it it you get while you're there, if that makes sense. So one of the things with book Yeah, one of the things with book fairs is also how you're going to get the sales when there are loads of people who are selling the same stuff as you. It's really interesting. And people who aren't needing to sell and they think it may be quite but yeah, so we end up doing sales on our books, and it's the only place we usually do sales. We do bundles, which are cheaper than buying collections and pamphlets individually. But we at when we're at Free Verse, we do sales. So we sell quite a lot. The profit on each one's quite small, if that makes sense. But the other thing, one reason we do it with somewhere like Free Verse is when you're up there, you you're in London and you get to see it's a poetry fair, so you get to meet loads of other poetry readers, loads of other poets, loads of other publishers. So there are the networking elements to it as well, if that makes sense. Yeah. So I enjoy book fairs, but there is always, for me, kind of likelihood of sales, cost of event, what other benefits might there be? Do you have book fairs in tonight?
SPEAKER_00:I can imagine. Yeah, I mean, yeah, if you if you're traveling to and from London these days, I can imagine it's quite expensive, to be honest with you. I mean, yeah, you were thinking about like poetry readings, two a week. I still think two a week's a lot. But you're right, if if you're doing four or five and you're touring the country, I I it it must put a lot of pressure on people. I'm going to be interviewing a writer, an American author, next m yeah, next month. And he's just come back from a book tour of like Europe and he's been there for like six months. Then I was like, Well, what if I did that? I was like, yeah, I can see it's exciting on one level. On another level, I think it might be quite exhausting. And you know, could you especially as a writer, you I feel like I have to try to write every day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I can imagine that's very difficult when you're you're in different places all the time. You know, you need to find that quiet set time, I would say. But yeah, so yeah, I think I think two a week, I think two weeks are fantastic, to be honest. These events, do you do you when you mention networking? Do you meet anyone? Have you met anyone that's like you would consider to be really impressive or a big hitter that's impressed you in any way, or anything like that?
SPEAKER_02:Um no, so this is the problem with this is I will say a name, and then there will be someone else who will be offended that I've not said their name. I think poetry is perhaps way better than novels, for example, on that score, in that poetry is quite a small, it's quite a small world anyway. So, you know, if you go to a festival, there's a high chance, if you've been writing poetry for any amount of time, that you are going to bump into someone you know while you're there, be able to say hello. I went to Wirral Poetry Festival and it's it's a lovely festival. But it you know, it it it's in the Wirral, so it's not like it's maybe not a a big Ledbury or Cheltenham literature festival kind of thing, but it it is really lovely. And I hadn't gone there planning to meet anyone, but when I was there, there were people that I knew, and that's just so lovely. Ledbury's like that near to us here as well. So yeah, who should I say? I'm Mark Doty, I met once and had a quick conversation with because he judged a competition in which I come second, and I managed to kind of go and say thank you to him, and so that was that was you know a moment for me. But I'm there are so many talented poets, and it if you're talking about the quality of the poetry, it's not always what you might consider the big names, if that makes sense. There are lots of small, really talented small press poets out there, and in terms of networking, for me, it it's more about meeting poets, not particular poets. Does that make sense? Um when we're in London, if there are other v Press poets there, they'll come and say hello. I mean, we didn't we haven't published any of Carrietta's poetry, but we published her flash flash fiction flash fiction chat book. Oh pamphlet, then it was folded. And you know, she's up in London quite often. Well, sh yeah, quite often, and we she was there the one year when we were there. And then there were also people who probably I should know the names of, but may not even have recognised that'll just come around the stall and you know, be having a look and browsing and deciding how they rate us. Yeah. I'm not networking is not necessarily something that comes easy to me, shall we say? I have more tendency, you know, you talked about quiet time for writing. I have I probably tend more towards being an introvert naturally. So it and I guess the good thing there about book fairs is it's not like you're going to a networking event where you have to talk to start small talk with people. You're on a stand with books, people come to you and you talk to them. If you understand what I mean. It's it's a nice way of doing it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it does sound like a nice way, but I mean I take your point about not maybe not naturally wanting to network. I mean, I I I think I'm very quite similar, and it's just now that I'm just like, no, come on. I've got to find a way to talk to people about writing. I I I I find it really interesting. You get to know things, you as long as you've got an open mind, you learn new things. It's it's fantastic. But yeah, I no, I can imagine at times it it I think sometimes like you know, networking the the word, sometimes there's negative connotations with it. Like you're just trying to advance yourself, and there's that element of is it hollow? Now I'm not suggesting you know these events are like that. I think it's just that maybe sometimes when us we're afraid maybe of coming off that way, or maybe we're afraid, I would be afraid, of going to a festival, hey everybody, and no one cares, or something like that, you know, or you know, it it it's I don't know, but I don't think I've ever been to a book fair, and I sh I should do. I I was involved in a literary society here quite a few years ago when I was lived in Beijing, but since I left Beijing, no. So again, this is my my apology. This is my apology, my podcast is my apology, and trying to yeah, because I just trying to get to know more people. I tell you what I want to go back to uh when you introducing yourself, you think you mentioned that as well as obviously writing, didn't you say you you you organize or you edit uh is it a magazine, small magazine?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's v press. It I mean it it's a press. It we're a small press. We publish solo author full collections, but not so many of them. Our main thing is chat books. We full full I'm sorry, not full, is poetry, pamphlets, they're sometimes known as over here, but we have spines to them now, chat books, so that's between 32 and 36 pages in total. We also do solo authored poetry collections. Those tend to be more occasional because there's just so much more work involved with them, and they uh at the moment tend to only be by poets who we've already published before with a chat book or I've worked with before. And we do flash fiction chat books as well.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So what's that what's that like? What's that like doing that? Uh and and and and I also when I when I'm saying that as well is like there's also a side, how do you do that and make sure that every day on most days you're writing? How how do you balance those?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I don't know. I mean for for you, and I can you know, the the writing every day is in is an important part. Which, if I'm honest, when I first started with my poetry, would have probably been I would have needed to write every day. And this may also be why my novel is still sat there like three years down the down the line when I'd said to one of the lit the uh literature development agencies here, I was supposed to send it out to agents two years ago and I still haven't. So, you know, possibly this is where I'm not yeah, but I I don't quite feel the same need to write every day. Does that mu make sense? I actually, because I think because getting publishers for stuff and submitting to stuff takes such a lot of energy, and you know that the chances are not going to, you know, the chances are it's not going to be wonderful news. So to some extent, the past five, maybe five to ten years even, it's been more of a test for me of writing less, but what I write matters more, if that makes sense. So if that idea is still hitting me on the head, or I've still got lines from a poem coming to me a couple of days later, because it stayed with me, then that's that's a piece that I actually need to get down and do something with, if that makes any sense. So I don't feel I have to write every day. Possibly it's also because so much of the work with running a press, there's lots of admin, there's the finance, but you know, there's a certain amount of creativity in it anyway. Designing book covers is quite creative. Editing, I have to have a really clear head to do the editing, but when I'm doing, you know, make reading and making reading is also creative, so I kind of maybe get my creative fill in that way, if that makes sense. So I don't, but yes, it is it is trying to do justice to everything is is hard. But I'm possibly at the moment, maybe in my head going, Oh, don't create another manuscript that you'll feel you've got to do something with, don't create another one, don't create another one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean yeah. Just yeah, listen to what you're saying. So, like when you're saying about you've got an idea in your head and you might not write it down, and then what, two or three days later, it's still there. Like Stephen King actually says that's the way to write. I I don't do that. Write like all my ideas down on my phone. On my phone. I'm not I'm still pretty uh pretty tech savvy. Uh I tend to write them all down, but most of them I'm never gonna write because I've got something like 200 and odd novel ideas on my phone, and some of them are probably absolutely terrible, and I should take time to go through them and just delete the ones that are just never gonna get done, but I don't. I just keep adding to it and stuff. That's the way I do it. But I was gonna say about you know you talk about writing the other day as well. I I I I talked about this in one of my first podcasts, and it was like inspiration versus discipline. And I was like, in my opinion, or from my experience, you know you you write poetry. I feel poetry is more about inspiration and more about got a great idea, write it. And I don't know if when I when I wrote, when we were doing the MA together, I wasn't writing every day poetry. I I wrote when I had ideas, which was about two or three days a week. It's more when I started writing novels that I've started writing more or less every day. I typically will try six days, and on the seven on the seventh day, I'll I'll do something like a hike or something. But I think with with a novel, it's about getting it finished, it's getting that first draft onto the page as quickly as possible, knowing it's full of mistakes, but then you've got to go back and edit and stuff. It's an interesting way of doing it. For me, it works, that's why I try and say it works for me. But I I think all writers have to kind of whatever they're writing, they have to approach it in their own way. I'm very wary of like this kind of like mindset, which is like this is what works for me, and that but it's universal, which isn't it isn't to be honest. Yeah, I anything else I want to say on the matter. Yeah, I can I but I would just going back to the the the the the small pressure have, yeah, I I think you do amazing to just do something with all that I can imagine like you mentioned about was it sending sending off submissions? I mean, I I do that for for novels, like you know, for agent queries, and the these days I try to get that done as quick as I can, but it's laborious, and I and I do feel like it's that every single one so at the moment I can laugh about it. It's a 100% failure rate, it's 100%. But like, but you do get a few nuggets that will come back, a few personal replies that do give you a bit of hope, and will say things like, you know, we really I really like the idea, we really like the writing, but we don't feel that you know this is this will get published. Some are words to that effect.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's frustrating as hell, but you you you do take these nuggets and go, I'll I'll take those. Yeah, and just again, just going back to the the sorry, the the small press. How many how many writers do you have now? Or how many books have you published? Is it a lot or is it just got started?
SPEAKER_02:The irony is we celebrated 10 this year has been our tenth anniversary of solo authored titles. And I know I've put it in a blog post. I think it's somewhere around 78 that we've published. Wow. And there's another two one I have in stock already for it going out next year. There's another one that is close to finished, and another three, one flash and two poetry chat books that have just taken on. So it it's I think it averages something like yeah, uh 7.8. Seven or eight books a year if you did it by averages. As I said, things like collections take a lot more time compared to chat books. Rather than Yeah. So we tend to have had like a a fewer number year than maybe a bigger number year because the books are already at a similar time. Does that make sense? So it might be three and then seven or five and then eight. It I think that now there is tends to be a quieter year, a big a busier year, a quieter year, a busier year. And it's just how the how the dates come through. Chat books, we don't have too much of a delay from finish from the finishing the editing and getting everything tied up to being able to publish it. But with full collections, in order to submit it to prizes, um there are certain dates that you've got to meet, which can then mean it's roughly six months ahead that you need the book finished before the actual publication date. So um, okay. But yeah, quite a lot, yeah. Uh going back to what you were saying about novels, all I will say is that I I tried with my novel in Flash with agents, and what you said, Rick, is very, very much similar to what I had with that. I did it might be different over in over there, but I did the I was advised to try the, you know, you you do six six agents, leave it three months, do another six, so that A so that you're not doing so A, so that you're not doing the whole block with the in one go. You've got one day of and then you've got three months to go. But also the theory was that you would get if you got feedback, you could adjust before you sent your next lot out. Does that make sense? Most of mine with the novel in flash were nice. One person asked for the full thing, but it ultimately still came back as not we're not I'm not quite the right person for it. I'm not quite the right agent for it. I I enjoyed it, but yeah, I've had that one many times.
SPEAKER_00:It it's a very common one. Again, I've had one one full one full MS requested. That was that was ages ago. It wasn't that's not even recent. That was like my my novel Jack Strong and the Red Giant. That was on like one of the the first drafts that I don't know, maybe maybe that's why you got rejected. It wasn't that great. It there's one it's probably a mistake I made. I wrote it, I edited it, I got some feedback from some readers, but then I sent it off to Asian straight away. And it's one of those things, and I'd say this to a lot of like new writers maybe don't do that, just maybe let it sit for a year or two. Keep writing and let it sit for a year or two, and then go back and edit it. And because you've grown as a writer, you'll see all these mistakes, and that's what I did, and I chopped off, I think it was like 10,000 words, and and it's a lot better as a result, and I could focus on it, but then when I sent it out again, they would say, Oh, you've already sent us this, and I'm like, No, yeah, I know, but I'm I'm I'm showing you how committed I am to the process, and I've edited it and I've made it better. Not interested, to be honest. And to be fair to be fair to the agent, I it it makes me understand what they're looking for. It's like it it's also the idea, you know, the idea, the premise of the story. That's what they projected. You might then go away and cut off 10,000 words, but the premise is still the same, if that makes sense. And the story is pretty much still the same. Uh which I I kinda I kinda get it is frustrating, but like I say, you you do learn from it. I like your way of doing it actually. I don't do it like that. And I maybe I should do. I I I've done I've tried different ones. I I've done a few per week until you know all the agents have been covered. I've done a few them all in three days where I've I've I've found a spot of time where I have nothing to do and I can just do it and I go through the whole thing. But it it's you you feel sick when you're finished, to be honest. I I'd also like to sub the the problem with that route is I I submit to UK agents, and ideally I want to submit to American agents as well, but after I finish with the UK agents, I'm sick of the whole thing, and I don't typically bother. Now I'm a bit I think it's because of the UK I've been submitting for so long that I think I hope that some of them kind of know me. But I don't have that in America, so it's kind of like I'm like, ah, you know, is there much point trying now? And I probably should do, don't get me wrong, I probably should do. Like some of my books that are set in America now, just you know, just because I just I I try different things in my novel. Every time I start a new novel, I go, okay, what can I do that's different? And it might not be a great thing, but it might be a little thing where I'll change the setting and take it away from the UK and put it in America, for example. So that's why I should be submitting to them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh but I haven't. But I should do.
SPEAKER_02:Neither of us have mentioned zeitgeist, though, and I also think that's actually quite important for everyone to remember. If you know what I mean. In poetry and in because you will see suddenly things which aren't popular become popular. I mean, the poetry example I would give is nature poetry. The audience for nature poetry and production of nature poetry, I think, has really taken off with greater environmental awareness, if that makes sense. Yeah. Um, and I do think that happens with pretty much everything. So it might not be the moment for it now.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:But in five years' time. Yeah, it can happen in the reverse where and I know people do you like I started writing dystopian fiction or d writing some dystopian fiction, like you know, when the Hunger Games came out, for example, and the maze runner. But when you but by then it's too late. Like the it's like it it's it's waning, you don't realise at the time. Now I'm not I'm not a huge fan of the Hunger Games. Uh I'm more a fan of like say George Orwell or Stephen King's Dystopian Fiction. But I think because that bubble was bursting at the time, when I then submit dystopian fiction, they're like, oh yeah, we're we're we're now on to there was a lot of you know, is it John Green? There was a lot of you know young adult fiction that was like it's kind of like this, like two kids dying of cancer, fall in love. And suddenly there was a lot of like, especially in America, a lot of young adult novels like that. And I I I've got no interest in that to be honest. I tend to write more like if I say Harry Potter, I mean like writing about young people, but there's an element of magic or sci-fi writing a lot of sci-fi. So if that's not in vogue.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. No, no, yeah. I wouldn't, I mean, uh romanticy is something that's hit the headlines over here as a as a yeah, but I would I don't have a romance if I had a romantic novel sitting home ready, then I'd be, yeah, fired up, let's do something. I don't, and I talked about this with friends because I tend to work magic realism comes in a lot, so a bit of dystopia, but it's not romantic. And I'm like, actually, if it's already it's like you're saying, if it's already on vogue now, that is at to me, there it's unlikely to be worth starting a new one solely to meet that need because time it takes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I tend to say with with with writing novels, write it's not just like poetry, write what you feel like you have to write. Yeah like that you have like the characters, the world, the story has to be done. And if you don't write it, it's a travesty to yourself. Like I already know what the next novel I'm gonna write is, and I just have to write it. It's it's so current. I'm gonna like base one of the bad guys on Elon Musk, and like, you know, and it's like I I need to send up these people. And it's gonna be on Mars, and it'll be the second book I've written about Mars, and I find that as a place it's so interesting. And this is one of the reasons I write novels, uh, is that if I write a book about Mars, when when I'm actually writing it, I'm there. I get to go there, I get to I get to write it, and and and who knows, maybe it won't be successful. In fact, as I said, it it's at the moment it's 100% likely it won't be successful, but I don't care about that. That's not why I do it. I do it because I've got these ideas that they need riding, and it is a challenge, it is a challenge, and I wanna I wanna know is this the book that I'm gonna fail? Is this the book that I'm gonna get halfway through and go, oh, I don't know what to do now. I don't think it will be. I don't think it will be, but I do like that challenge, and I like bringing characters to life. These days I'm trying to write characters I wouldn't normally write about. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I like I like writing novels a lot, to be honest, and and trying different things. Yeah, romanticity, it it that's a that's like a type of fiction that's completely passed me by, I'll be honest. I think it's like I'm sure I read reasons like is it Sarah J. Mas.
SPEAKER_02:I think I wouldn't I it isn't it isn't of I I have fairly eclectic reads, but I don't go to fantasy is not really my of any type isn't real it yeah. I dystopia, magic realism, and what you're talking talking about set on Mars sounds really interesting. That where where you can use it to you know the social aspects of what's wrong now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Which is what science fiction does really, really well when it's um that interests me. I do read some romance. Um it tends to be literary romance more or if you know what I mean, or women's fiction, it's not going into fantasy world. So I I yeah, I I you it's good to be pushed, isn't it? And to try something new, but there's trying something new that's on the edge of where you are and that interests you, and then there's trying to be, you know, standing on a typerope with uh ballet dancing shoes on and juggling or something, which is just feels a little bit like why would you do that? What what's the point? Why what would I actually get from that other than probably falling off and hurting myself?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, yeah, romantic I I think I probably will go back. I wouldn't mind reading a romantic novel, but I suspect I will hate it. And I just yeah, I I I suspect I won't like it. I like fantasy a lot, but I don't know. There's another type of fantasy I don't like at all, it's like dark fantasy, which is like fantasy, but like it's dark. It's like it it's there's a lot of violence, for example, gratuitous violence, and it's like I I I try to read some, and it's there's no humor, there's no light, and it's just like, oh, this is just gonna be like this for ten bucks. No way, like you know, whereas you read like Lord of the Rings, shit, there's darkness, and but there's you've got comic relief, and there's great writing about the countryside, for example. So, yeah, it it's it is interesting how like different genres just pop up and and just completely what's the word I was looking for, like saturate the market. And I think it also that might be an aspect of like this globalized media where everybody is suddenly aware of what the main trend is, whether that's for example, you know, eating food, pop music, or in this case, you know, novels and and reading and stuff, i i i it it's it's interesting what what's happening at the moment. But yeah, romanticis is I think it's really big in America in particular, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02:Well, if you've got a story that's you know, where you could merge it with that, that might be worth if you read someone, you like them, and you think that's the kind of thing that would as I say, I don't I don't really go to fantasy at all, so I it's too far a stretch for me. But I think particularly if you've already got a novel written, but you're uh open to being able to re-slant it, the amount of work to do that and the time it would take to do that isn't necessarily you know, bringing structural advice I've had on the one I'm in progress with is quite a lot of you've got a mixture of this and you've got that happening, you can't have all these different genres trying to come into one. So I have to decide which genres, you know, I merging two would work. But the aspects are there, if that makes sense. So if I make if something were to be particularly popular, I could prioritize that side of merging it in. If that I'm possibly not explaining what I mean very well.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no, I understand. I don't understand. Yeah, I don't understand. It's it's just it's picking what's popular, or what not what will be popular. And that that is a little bit like you remember like Mystic Meg. It's the reading tea leaves, that's reading tea leaves, like I think the romantic bubble will will burst.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because they they all they all they all did, they all did. But then something else might come up that we just we just cannot predict. I I I don't know. Like Harry Potter came out of nowhere. You know, that this magic thing came out of nowhere. So we'll we'll see. I I was gonna ask you one more question, actually. Going again, going back to the uh this V press, so like obviously I think you said you've got yes, was it seven or eight, seven or eight collections or chat books a year? Yeah. So like of it busy, basically. Like, how do you go about like like producing those? Like, do you do the editing? Do you do you employ editors, like uh printing? How how do you go about it?
SPEAKER_02:I do not print them here. They get sent to printers to print them. Um it's pretty much me. I mean the the yeah, there's a long history to how our first book was a collaborative chat book for because we had a gig at a big poetry festival and there were four women and we did a really small chat book so that we had something to sell at the gig. We then moved on to the solo collections, and a close poet friend of mine was supposed to be editing with me. We were going to be joined editors and she did the covers. She did the she wasn't able. Stuff happened, she was busy, so she wasn't able to actually join me with any of the editing, but stayed on to do the covers. So up till 2020, for five years, I was doing the editing and she was but she was doing the covers for all the poetry titles that weren't illustrated ones. I did the flash, but she did that. She then she's works in university. Um most university lecturers are incredibly overworked and underpaid for the amount of hours they're doing. So she in 2020 she said, I I can't I can't keep doing the covers because none of our work is paid. It's all you know for the love of it. So it yeah, it's me. I pretty much do everything. I have little bits of help with different things along the line. My my husband fortunately is very good on the tech side if I ever hit any tech problems, and I have help with the accounts. I put all the info into the accounts, but our annual accounts are actually done for me by someone who's very kind enough to do that for me. But yes, I don't know if I can't even remember what you originally asked, and I don't know whether that's answered it. There's quite a lot of work involved, and there's quite a few different stages involved with it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's an aspect of you know, obviously like publishing. This is one of the reasons why I started the podcast. I don't know. I don't know about this this side of the writing industry. And yeah, that's why I asked her. I was like, Yeah, I was just wondering, do you do you have editors? And I get it, it's just yourself, it's a small publication. But I think it's interesting, it comes across that it's quite collaborative as well. You you need different people, especially for book covers, which I think are tough. I think that's that's a hard thing to do. Yeah, editing, of course, as well. Yeah, so interesting. Okay, Sarah, I think we can end it there, okay?
SPEAKER_02:Fabulous, thank you. Thank you for having me on. And Merry Christmas for everyone if this comes out before Christmas.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Merry Christmas to you too. Um you're always welcome back anytime. Okay. Until next time, see you later.
SPEAKER_02:Bye bye then. Bye. Bye.